De Blasio announces plan to spend $145M on parks that will protect Rockaways from flooding

Mayor de Blasio (c.) speaks at a conference in Queens about the city’s ongoing recovery and resiliency efforts on the five year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. (Debbie Egan-Chin/New York Daily News)

On the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, Mayor de Blasio announced plans to spend $145 million on seven park projects to help protect the Rockaways from future floods.

The city will launch the projects – with federal approval – starting with rebuilding Bayswater Park. The work includes installing a berm along the waterfront, plus building sports fields, play areas and a kayaking spot.

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The cash comes from $120 million left over from the $480 million the feds earmarked for rebuilding the Rockaway Boardwalk, which Sandy destroyed. The money can be moved to other resiliency projects in the neighborhood.

The city is kicking in another $25 million.

"We cannot solve climate change ourselves," de Blasio said Sunday at a press conference at a Rockaway YMCA, noting the city will have to work to cut emissions while steeling itself for future storms.

Hurricane Sandy: Remembering the historic storm and its aftermath

"It will protect the communities behind it," he said of the park project. "For many years, the Rockaways didn't get a fair deal ... We can right some of the wrongs of the past."

The other Rockaway projects include a raised shoreline around the Edgemere section and six recreational facilities along Shorefront Parkway to replace ones the superstorm ruined. At Rockaway Community Park, officials plan to raise the shorelines and restore native wetlands as a natural buffer between the park and Jamaica Bay.

A new park at Beach 88th St. will include a seawall and restored wetlands, and a vacant lot will be turned into Thursby Basin Park, with another seawall and vegetation designed to protect against tidal flooding.

"The city isn't going to retreat from the shoreline," said Councilman Donovan Richards (D-Queens). "We're going to make it Rockaway strong."

A conceptual rendering of Bayswater Park was shown by Mayor de Blasio at the press conference. (NYC.gov)

Bayswater Park will take three years to complete, while the rest of the projects will take up to six years, said Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver.

Flood-protection systems were supposed to be built at five spots in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx by last year, but the projects aren't complete and several have been scaled back.

"I'm very frustrated with the things that took so long to get done. I'm frustrated that things are still not done," de Blasio said.

De Blasio meets with brothers Tyler Williams, 9, and Christian Williams, 5, at a conference in Queens on Oct. 29. (Debbie Egan-Chin/New York Daily News)

Five years after Sandy, the city continues to face criticism that many homeowners are still waiting for repairs to their homes under the Build It Back program – which de Blasio once pledged would be done by the end of 2016, but still drags on.

"The design of the program was flawed. I wish we had questioned it and decided that it was not a good model to begin with," de Blasio said Sunday.

"Once we recognized we were too far down the road to turn back, we tried to improve it in ways that we could and speed it up in the ways that we could. I get that people feel frustrated."